Analysis of Sonnet 6: Some Lovers Speak

Sir Philip Sidney 1554 (Penshurst, Kent) – 1586 (Zutphen)



Some lovers speak when they their Muses entertain,
Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires:
Of force of heav'nly beams, infusing hellish pain:
Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires.

Some one his song in Jove, and Jove's strange tales attires,
Broidered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden rain;
Another humbler wit to shepherd's pipe retires,
Yet hiding royal blood full oft in rural vein.

To some a sweetest plaint a sweetest style affords,
While tears pour out his ink, and sighs breathe out his words:
His paper pale despair, and pain his pen doth move.

I can speak what I feel, and feel as much as they,
But think that all the map of my state I display,
When trembling voice brings forth that I do Stella love.


Scheme ABAB BAXA XXX CCX
Poetic Form
Metre 11011111001 1101111111010 11111010101 1101111101010 11110101111 11101101101 0101001110101 110101110101 110101010101 111111011111 110101011111 111111011111 111101111101 1100111111101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 761
Words 138
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 3, 3
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 42
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 148
Words per stanza (avg) 34
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 01, 2023

42 sec read
198

Sir Philip Sidney

Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier, scholar and soldier who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. more…

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